Krishna
This is installment three in the Batman reboot done by Christopher Nolan. The director has taken an oft represented story of a comic book character, portrayed in the celluloid itself many times before and given it a new twist in the latest trilogy, starting from Batman Begins, followed by the incredible The Dark Night, with the mesmerizing portrayal of The Joker by Heath Ledger. So there was much anticipation regarding the third and concluding part, this movie.
We do not have Heath Ledger anymore but what made the second movie great was not just his portrayal of the villain but the storyline and indeed the angle taken in all of the new trilogy by the director – the personal view of Batman, why he is what he is, and what he feels and thinks as a man. In fact, as he himself says in one of the movies, he is not a superhero in the conventional sense of the term (he has no inherent superpowers; everything he has is technology, made by his scientist friend Lucius Fox – played by Morgan Freeman – and boy, does he have gadgets to show off in this film!
The movie starts with many years of quiet and peace ruling in Gotham after Batman takes the blame for Harvey Dent’s misdeeds and disappears. The city needs a hero and so the Police Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Batman (Christian Bale) decide that Harvey Dent will be that hero. Batman disappears into his alter ego Bruce Wayne, industrialist and philanthropist, and given that his body has been battered anyway to play superhero, tries to live out his life in the quiet.
Things do not stay that way when Bane, an evil genius comes to create havoc in the city and takes on the entire police force, killing policeman, causing mayhem and also wounding the commissioner critically.
Batman has to come to the rescue but he is up against Bane and also a cat burgler Selina (Ann Hathaway) who betrays him to Bane. When he is captured and thrown into an inescapable well, there seems to be no escape for Batman at all.
He seems to be no match for Bane’s strength and cunning and doomed to watch helplessly as his perennial energy device is converted into a nuclear device, planted right in the midst of Gotham city, and his beloved city is being destroyed.
How he comes back to take the city and also find a loyal assistant is the rest of the story.
The gadgets and the sequences are awesome. The storyline is credible and full of suspense. The emotional resignation of Albert, his servant and a father figure, is touching.
The last scene where Albert is in the cafe mourning Bruce Wayne’s self sacrifice to save the city and how it is interrupted by the waiter bringing him his favourite drink without his ordering it, and what it portends, is all well told.
Is this movie good? Undoubtedly. Is it as good as part 2? No. I think Part 2 is still the best in the series. Even without Heath Ledger, the storyline and the presentation of Part 2 would have outshone this.
However, in itself, this is a great movie and entertaining to watch, and deserves a 7/10
— Krishna